206 replies to this topic

[Wintersdark]

Mechs win because battletech space magic.

Done.

[S 0 L E N Y A]

Wintersdark, on 10 October 2016 - 11:17 AM, said:

Mechs win because battletech space magic.

Done.

Good point. I forgot about plot armor.

[Damocles]

Fiction kinda works that way.

[Clownwarlord]

Here let me put it into perspective ... tanks with a lower profile could sit back and pop off mechs. On top of that our modern military has planes that an fly high enough and drop off a payload on a mech guided by a single person hidden on the battlefield to destroy a mech. Also lets not forget the navy were the US Navy has recently finished prototypes of a coil gun which can fire beyond the curve of the Earth. So yeah your mech will be destroyed in open area by the Navy, Plane, or Tanks; and in cover tanks can weed you out with more tanks to your 1 mech (cheaper to make a tank) or targeted air strike with a person hidden in a building.

Yep mechs never practical but they sure are cool look'n.

[Plastic Guru]

Wecx, on 08 October 2016 - 08:55 PM, said:

Something i can respond to, Being a former M1 Abrams crew-member i can assure you that this is true.

Thank God...I was starting to wonder if ANYONE answering this stupid question actually served.

FIRST and foremost....our military works together hand in glove. It's called "Combined Arms"...we'd go through them like a fat kid on a candy bar.

Also...Mecha and Anime are really popular in the military...don't think a mech would cause shock and awe. More like "I wanna get the first kill on that!!" mentality.

AGM-84 will go through a Knox Class Frigate the long way. That's 4300 tons by the way and 440 feet or so long depending on variant. (Saw an off center strike forward of the bridge and the explosive cone reached aft of the turbines..that was a "YIKES!" moment for everyone). Don't get me started on the AGM-109 TLAM Tomahawk....building killer....been there, seen that.

Saw JDAMs completely wreck (ie made gravel) out of a whole city block...all from one drop.

Not only that but we have smart weapons and even smarter explosives. Fire and forget, constant re-aquire, re-attack capability. AND...many of our most destructive weapons don't actually HIT the target center mass. They're designed to disable or explode nearby causing (greater) concussive damage. Mk 48's torpedoes don't hit a ship...they explode under them breaking them in half due to water displacement.

I will give you the awesome power of the Gauss....but the most scary weapon is their 'tiny' machine guns with 1.125 POUND rounds. Our most destructive (.50 BMG SLAP-T) machine gun round weight only 3/4 of a pound....again....they consider this a 'light weapon'

Plastic Guru

Edited by Plastic Guru, 10 October 2016 - 12:50 PM.

[Plastic Guru]

Vellron2005, on 10 October 2016 - 02:21 AM, said:

And then again, why not bypass armor entirely?
Today's weapons are so accurate that most every shot fired you would hear a deep mysterious voice call "Head shot" :-P

I laughed so hard I choked on my coffee...!!!

Plastic Guru

[Anjian]

rollermint, on 10 October 2016 - 11:06 AM, said:

I'd imagine the armor quality and material in Battletech will be FAR FAR superior to the most state of the art "armor" and munitions in our current day militaries that they can easily shrug off anything we throw at them.

Just like our modern battletank can take a thousand of the best medieval arrows without a scratch.
I mean, heck, in the first Iraq war, the Abrams were taking multiple hits from outdated iraqi munitions without much trouble.

So yeah, an agm 84 will hardly even register against the CT of an Atlas, the CT of which is where it has the most armor.

Except the armor described are actually not, since they consist mostly of Titanium with steel matrices, layers of ceramic and boron nitride along with carbon/diamond fibers. That's actually within the scope of modern technology. Furthermore, these materials tend to be quite brittle, prone to fracturing. Armor needs to be malleable, as they actually absorb stress better that way.

There is no reactive armor in BT by the way, until it is rediscovered in 3063 by the Draconis Combine. And yet we have reactive armor via ERA with modern tanks. BT's plot tech point to a collapse in technology long before, so things that come from an earlier age may also be more advanced and refers to an golden age. When a golden age syndrome pops up in scifi, that means the scifi universe in question has regressed technology and has suffered multiple apocalyptic and catastrophic events such as wars and so forth, frequently plunging into cycles of dark ages and so forth. That's why the society in question does not feel more advanced, as well as political and economic systems and so forth. At times it actually feels even more backward and regressed.

A modern 120mm gun is roughly the equivalent of an AC2 in the game in terms of muzzle velocity and shell weight, so the damage isn't one but 2. And this does show that mechs can be damaged by such guns and the mech can be brought down if focus fired at the same segment.

Edited by Anjian, 10 October 2016 - 06:27 PM.

[Snowbluff]

Plastic Guru, on 10 October 2016 - 12:45 PM, said:

Thank God...I was starting to wonder if ANYONE answering this stupid question actually served.

Not a good attitude to approach the problem with.

Quote

I will give you the awesome power of the Gauss....but the most scary weapon is their 'tiny' machine guns with 1.125 POUND rounds. Our most destructive (.50 BMG SLAP-T) machine gun round weight only 3/4 of a pound....again....they consider this a 'light weapon'

IMO, a Daishi is much less scary than a Locust. Daishi is large and slow, making it super easy to hit with bombs (maybe not even JDAM, might be easy enough to hit with dumb missiles) and missiles. A locust is much faster and smaller. One equipped with an ECM (like a Pirate's Bane), would be much harder to track with radar as well. And it carries those really weight efficient MGs and lasers. :0

[LORD ORION]

Shiroi Tsuki, on 08 October 2016 - 09:33 AM, said:

If say a Direwolf Daishi was transported in our timeline and eats a Harpoon (AGM-84) right in the CT, would it survive? Or would it shrug it off like you're throwing pebbles on a tank?

Well, modern missiles and APFSDS will rip right through a tank, so you can expect 1 point of battletech damage to be catastrophic to anything built today. eg: An MG or small laser would overkill an MBT.

Would a modern weapon be able to do 1 point of battletech damage? No. That's like asking if a ballista from the 1300s would penetrate an MBT.

Would a modern weapon even be able to hit a mech? No. All aim assist would be worse than jammed, systems would explode in a mass of sparks if they got anywhere near anything from battletech.

Battletech is make believe, but they are pretty specific that ranges are limited because of the toughness of armor and because of the amount of background ECM on every battlefield.

Edited by LORD ORION, 10 October 2016 - 09:42 PM.

[Snowbluff]

LORD ORION, on 10 October 2016 - 09:40 PM, said:

Battletech is make believe, but they are pretty specific that ranges are limited because of the toughness of armor and because of the amount of background ECM on every battlefield.

Do we have any source to back this up? More particularly, would the ECM be provided by the robot itself or a support craft?

[RestosIII]

LORD ORION, on 10 October 2016 - 09:40 PM, said:

Well, modern missiles and APFSDS will rip right through a tank, so you can expect 1 point of battletech damage to be catastrophic to anything built today. eg: An MG or small laser would overkill an MBT.

Would a modern weapon be able to do 1 point of battletech damage? No. That's like asking if a ballista from the 1300s would penetrate an MBT.

Would a modern weapon even be able to hit a mech? No. All aim assist would be worse than jammed, systems would explode in a mass of sparks if they got anywhere near anything from battletech.

Battletech is make believe, but they are pretty specific that ranges are limited because of the toughness of armor and because of the amount of background ECM on every battlefield.

Have you heard of... manually aiming at the glass cockpit? Or our tank guns that have ranges of several kilometers? Or high altitude bombs? That's not even touching up on artillery and ship-based guns or long range missile systems.

[dervishx5]

RestosIII, on 10 October 2016 - 09:52 PM, said:

Have you heard of... manually aiming at the glass cockpit? Or our tank guns that have ranges of several kilometers? Or high altitude bombs? That's not even touching up on artillery and ship-based guns or long range missile systems.

As I posted several pages back, those guns do nothing to modern Battletech armor.

Edited by dervishx5, 10 October 2016 - 10:01 PM.

[LORD ORION]

RestosIII, on 10 October 2016 - 09:52 PM, said:

Have you heard of... manually aiming at the glass cockpit? Or our tank guns that have ranges of several kilometers? Or high altitude bombs? That's not even touching up on artillery and ship-based guns or long range missile systems.

Maybe you didn't infer bro, battletech weapons don't shoot that far because they can't penetrate the armor at that range. Modern weapons can score hits all day and wouldn't do 1 damage.
As for manual aiming, lol... sure, you let me know what tanks moving at btech 5 and can hit a moving target over rough terrain without electronic aim assist. There is a reason the US inflicts 10000 to 1 casualty ratings on 3rd world nations using 60s tech.

Edited by LORD ORION, 10 October 2016 - 10:09 PM.

[Czerno Alpha]

TheArisen, on 08 October 2016 - 09:28 PM, said:

Considering battletech mechs have glass cockpits, a single laser guided missile could kill every mech with ease. Seriously, they can put those missiles through a house's window.

As far as armor, I don't think lasers would be very effective against tanks like the Abrams & Challenger II because their armor is built to stop heat based rounds like depleted uranium, although it's possible it'd cook the crew inside. Any other MBT would get melted easily.

Cockpit windows are not glass. They are ferro-glass. Essentially transparent mech armor.

[DovisKhan]

LORD ORION, on 10 October 2016 - 10:09 PM, said:

Maybe you didn't infer bro, battletech weapons don't shoot that far because they can't penetrate the armor at that range. Modern weapons can score hits all day and wouldn't do 1 damage.
As for manual aiming, lol... sure, you let me know what tanks moving at btech 5 and can hit a moving target over rough terrain without electronic aim assist. There is a reason the US inflicts 10000 to 1 casualty ratings on 3rd world nations using 60s tech.

Yes, that reason being specifically instructed to waste ammo, you should google drone strike protocols, where pilots are encouraged to drop bombs regardless if they can verify there is a target or not, every flight out of base should result in a bomb dropped, irrelevant where


Modern capabilities are astounding compared to btech, there already are rockets, launch-able from predator drones that can hit the driver within a car driving 100+ kph in any terrain


Modern railgun has the velocity of 8 km/second, that's several times faster than the Gauss we have in MWO and as a result carry much, much, much more kinetic energy, it would completely disable an Atlas in 1 hit

Edited by DovisKhan, 11 October 2016 - 12:39 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

DovisKhan, on 11 October 2016 - 12:38 AM, said:

Modern capabilities are astounding compared to btech, there already are rockets, launch-able from predator drones that can hit the driver within a car driving 100+ kph in any terrain

That sound as stupid as a nuclear missile that is accurate enough to hit a building.

Again you have 3 versions of BT range:

• the LosTech - of the first novels and games - totally ok in the MadMax style universe
  
• the ECM and armor strength - because LosTech doesn't work when Clans don't had a downfall (oh they had several) but still aren't able to hit a barn at more than 500m
  
• every range and damage ratios are only there for one reason - IT IS A GAME BOYS

• The "REAL" Gauss RIfle might be able to fire hyper sonic ferromagnetic APDU core bullets that weight only 20-30kg, and the passing would turn infantry into red mist
  
• The "REAL" LRMs might be 40-50kg missiles that out range a modern MLRS system
  Spoiler

  my version of a BT LRM with "AT seeker warhead" range 24km - and the Atlas might carry 40 of them....
  
  
• The "SRM" might be a fast loading ATM pod that saturate a target with HEAT warheads
  
• theLaser would rather been blasters that bring the pain in a flash not a beam - killing everything near the impact because of molten ejecta
  
• The PPC will be radiation dead - even if you survive the shot the cancer will get you still
  
• The ACs are ECT guns that fire multiple projectiles each with far more kinetic energy as the punny 120mm Rheinmetall

About the game statement - a thinking Mans Mech Skill Shooter with LRMs reaching 32km would be total fun - or trying to hit a subpixel with the PPC that is the other Kodiak 4km out, but that guy is filling the air between him and you with metal that follows ballistic paths and will hit you in maybe 3seconds. And each of those 120mm shells will rip your metal coffin open.... total fun

Edited by Karl Streiger, 11 October 2016 - 01:11 AM.

[Kh0rn]

I guess it really depends on how we look at it, Its never really been confirmed or put out for us just how long range the weapons in the BT universe are there was a book I was reading where a Hollander took out a kit fox at 4km with a single direct hit from gauss rifle. So really the real weapon ranges were left to table top and games to create but the actual lore ranges were not consistant.

In a real world military battle tech I could mechs being a viable weapon if they moved and interacted like they did in BT, But make it so that the weapons from BT had similar ranges to that of modern day. The mech could function pretty well since it far more mobile then a tank, can go more places then a tank, can do more things then a tank, operated by a single pilot, armed with more weapons then a tank and has similar flexibility to a human being.

With out the Neural interface and with out the myomer system yes the mech would just fall over but those two things are what keeps the machine moving and balaced, as for size these mechs are not like 30 meters tall. A Atlas at largest is about 13-14 meters tall. While hitting a battle mech may be easier then hitting a tank the whole armor construct of a mech being rather slopped and angled while on the move will prove very difficult to penetrate not to mention that these battle mechs have very very advance light weight armor that can with stand enormous amounts of punishment. The weapons of BT make ours look like childs toys. The AC 20 alone considered old tech in BT can be anything from a 185mm it a 203mm rapid firing canon that alone is serious firepower that would just destroy any armor we had not to mention the amount of other weapons a mech may carry.

Also going back to flexibility mechs are far more flexible then what the games can demonstrate, mechs could jump, crouch, duck, rotate arms in all directions, punch , pick up. While they could move as fast as a human being they came pretty close to matching it flexibility.

However cost would be a serious issue all that tech and hardware would come with a hefty price.

But say they were outfitted with pre succession war era targeting systems that would allow the mechs with accurate fire while on the moved fitted with weapons going longer ranges and I say the mech would be a scary as weapon of war.

[DovisKhan]

Karl Streiger, on 11 October 2016 - 01:05 AM, said:

That sound as stupid as a nuclear missile that is accurate enough to hit a building.

Again you have 3 versions of BT range:

• the LosTech - of the first novels and games - totally ok in the MadMax style universe
  
• the ECM and armor strength - because LosTech doesn't work when Clans don't had a downfall (oh they had several) but still aren't able to hit a barn at more than 500m
  
• every range and damage ratios are only there for one reason - IT IS A GAME BOYS

• The "REAL" Gauss RIfle might be able to fire hyper sonic ferromagnetic APDU core bullets that weight only 20-30kg, and the passing would turn infantry into red mist
  
• The "REAL" LRMs might be 40-50kg missiles that out range a modern MLRS system
  Spoiler

  my version of a BT LRM with "AT seeker warhead" range 24km - and the Atlas might carry 40 of them....
  
  
• The "SRM" might be a fast loading ATM pod that saturate a target with HEAT warheads
  
• theLaser would rather been blasters that bring the pain in a flash not a beam - killing everything near the impact because of molten ejecta
  
• The PPC will be radiation dead - even if you survive the shot the cancer will get you still
  
• The ACs are ECT guns that fire multiple projectiles each with far more kinetic energy as the punny 120mm Rheinmetall

About the game statement - a thinking Mans Mech Skill Shooter with LRMs reaching 32km would be total fun - or trying to hit a subpixel with the PPC that is the other Kodiak 4km out, but that guy is filling the air between him and you with metal that follows ballistic paths and will hit you in maybe 3seconds. And each of those 120mm shells will rip your metal coffin open.... total fun

You of course realize that there might be hostages in the back seat and the rocket will only be powerful enough to kill the driver, or maybe there's an important person that has to be extracted.... Killing isn't the only objective in every military operation


So modern accuracy is needed.


Now yes, BT is a game, so of course it scales everything down, that is the point, real war is neither fair nor fun, in modern warfare you don't see what hit you, you simply die


So BT mechs as they are protrayed would be turned into scrap metal


If they would be scaled with todays technology, into the future, they'd first come equipped with much better integrated computers, targetting systems and battlefield information systems.


If you were piloting an Atlas, you'd know what's happening in at least 150 km area, You'd carry railguns, rockets, lasers and anti missile systems better than those we have today


Not to mention reactive armor, scores of auxiliary drones, vehicle support, air support, infantry support and artillery support and very likely orbital bombardment support

Edited by DovisKhan, 11 October 2016 - 01:30 AM.

[visionGT4]

Snowbluff, on 10 October 2016 - 09:46 PM, said:

Do we have any source to back this up? More particularly, would the ECM be provided by the robot itself or a support craft?

Ive always assumed the EW environment is heavily abstracted in BT. Its my head cannon way of explaining the poor capability of sensors (and thus weapon performance) in the BT universe.

[kesmai]

One 3027 style RCG with full aerospace assets will be enough to conquer the whole planet.
As opposite to our "experimental" hightech weaponry the inner sphere used their tech to the brink of self annihilation for almost 400 years non stop.

Let's hope Paul doesn't do the balance though...